It‘s hard to write about you without writing for you (which is infinitely frustrating) and wondering if (when) (if/when) you’ll come across it. Will you wait for the three grown children? Or does the crisis come sooner, right before the wedding. There was a delay the first time, when I thought it was lost, so maybe it will happen late in life, and you’ll hit me up to be your nursing home sweetheart.

Not a chance, I’ve already practiced saying. You burned that bridge back in 2015. And I’ll shuffle back to my sterile built-in apartment and my hands will shake with emotional palsy for hours.

It’s been a year since My Big Life Event and three since we started (funny how they coincided – I think once I tried to work out whether it was to the day, but I can’t remember the result, which probably means it wasn’t a perfect fit and, as you know, nothing imperfect is worth remembering with precision). Three. Years. I used to see it as sea glass, the knot left in my chest, wearing smooth with each swoosh of blood. Now, on the other side and I do mean that physically, it has finally crumbled. Now, on the other side, those memories are simple sand, there in a pile for me to squidge my feet in whenever I feel like a good sob.

I wrote about you for My Big Life Event. I wasn’t planning to include you, but it would have been an omission I would have regretted. So, there you are in my words, the shadowed way you always were and the piecey way I’ll always remember. And always forget.

I pulled my first book from Amazon today. Rather, I logged in and shifted a check mark from the left-most (Active) column to the right-most (Closed) column. I thought about stopping over in the center (Suspended) for a bit but then I thought, if I’m going to do the damn thing…

Next weekend marks the six-year anniversary of All Downhill. It’s also my six-week anniversary of being in San Fransisco. As the former was totally and entirely tied to a place (both in time and geography) and the latter is totally and entirely unlinked from that, it feels appropriate to cut ’em both loose. It reminds me of something Sean Christopher Nelson said on twitter a few months ago, about Flagpole Sitta. He said he was happy people enjoyed his song but it was weird to be remembered for something he did when he was 22.